Go read this. A Buffalo Beast columnist pretending to be David Koch gets through to Wisconsin Governor Scott Hosni Walker.

During the call Walker shares the following:

He considered planting “troublemakers” in the protest crowd.

His goal is to break the unions. They are the enemy.

He says he won’t negotiate with Democrats.

He accepts an offer from Koch to go to California to be shown a good time.

Is Walker committing political suicide? Perhaps it really doesn’t matter if your goal is to gut unions on behalf of the rich. There’s plenty of wingnuts waiting in the wings to take up the crusade if Walker falls.

Sorry, but the game has not changed. Huge disappointment. No important admissions, not tricked into saying something embarrassing; just a bit of weirdness. Summary of conversation: The “Koch” scam caller did nothing but crack stereotypical right-wing-asshole lines, which the governor basically chuckled along with politely but mostly dismissed. Had the prank caller done some homework, he could have destroyed the governor’s career. Instead, he ended his secretary’s.

WALKER: You’ve got a few of the radical ones — unfortunately, one of them’s the minority leader — but most of the rest of them are just looking for a way to get out of this. They’re scared out of their minds. They don’t know what it means. There’s a bunch of recalls up against them. They’d really like to just get back up here and get it over with. So the paycheck thing, some of the other things threatening them, I think collectively there’s enough going on, and as long as they don’t think I’m going to cave, which again we have no interest in. An interesting idea that was brought up to me by my chief of staff, we won’t do it until tomorrow, is putting out an appeal to the Democratic leader. I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders—talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn—but I’ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly. They can recess it… the reason for that, we’re verifying it this afternoon, legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum because it’s turned out that way. So we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capitol with all 14 of them. My sense is, hell. I’ll talk. If they want to yell at me for an hour, I’m used to that. I can deal with that. But I’m not negotiating.

What a joke. Some impersonator with the journalistic ethics of James O’Keefe lies his way to speak to a sitting state governor. Nothing precient came out of the conversation other than MSNBC’s and the liberal blogosphere’s totally weak defense of one sovereign state’s right to enact legislation.

And all the while, 14 state senators are holed up like hippies in another state because they did not get their way. I’ve never seen such cowardice and the lack of news reporting on how these senators are basically in dereliction of duty at the very least.

Btw, Koch Bros. gave ~$43k to Walker’s campaign – that’s a mere 0.47% of the total – $9,195,000 – that the now-Gov. received. Moreover, the so-called ‘energy’ industry, which MSNBC and others try to portray as the biggest players in Walker’s campaign contributions gave a mere $200k overall – which is 2.19% of the over $9 million Walker got as I alluded to.

Guess who gave the most? Bingo – The Wisconsin State Teacher’s Union at ~ $1.55 million. Let’s see…$43k versus $1.5 million? Wow! Those Koch Brothers are masterful manipulators to be able to get millions of Wisconsin voters to choose Walker on a shoestring of shoestring budgets.

Ezra: “But if the transcript of the conversation is unexceptional, the fact of it is lethal. The state’s Democratic senators can’t get Walker on the phone, but someone can call the governor’s front desk, identify themselves as David Koch, and then speak with both the governor and his chief of staff? That’s where you see the access and power that major corporations and wealthy contributors will have in a Walker administration, and why so many in Wisconsin are reluctant to see the only major interest group representing workers taken out of the game.”

Under bankruptcy law, if your creditors can prove that if right before your bankruptcy you gave your remaining money to favored creditors, the court can claw back that money even after you paid it, and distribute it properly.

Similarly, if you are responsible for child support payments, and the court finds you have voluntarily reduced your income to avoid making your payments, you will still owe the same payments.

Now, neither of those laws applies to Walker, but everybody knows the deal.

Politicfacts doesn’t change the reality that Walker found money to give tax breaks to business but suddenly a
can’t find any for state workers. In other words, state workers are having to pay for big business’s tax breaks.

While such pranks are great at exposing the real motivations of Republicans like Walker, they unfortunately have no impact on changing their behavior. Republicans like Walker consider intransigence under any conditions a virtue, even under the condition of exposure. Of course such intransigence is considerably reinforced by the many dollars that people like the Koch brothers can front through various venues to promote a political career. What is needed to break such intransigence is to raise the stakes of persisting in an intransigent stance to a level that makes it too costly to maintain. I don’t know what that would be, but I’m sure it would require considerable sacrifice. A general strike comes to mind, but that is a lot to ask of people. Besides, I suspect that the USA working public has been too victimized and too indocrinated to be capable of that degree of solidarity. That’s a pity because Republicans like Walker probably can’t be motivated to compromise by any other nonviolent means.

Don’t know how he can suspend direct deposit. According to Check 21 (Federal) regulations and NACHA regulations, only the recipient of a government payment to a financial institution can change the delivery address from direct deposit to check by mail. Anyone else doing this without the recipient’s authorization is committing fraud.

‘samatter newsmutt? cant handle truth? the only way to get teabags to tell the truth is to trick them into doing it. You should be outraged at his evil motives. Instead you keep “originally thinking” exactly what Glenn Beck is saying.

oh and “And all the while, 14 state senators are holed up like hippies in another state because they did not get their way”
so, the people they were elected to protect are under attack by the rich and powerful and their only means of defending those people rights is….. unacceptable to you. So if one party loses an election you’re saying they should just go along with the people who won the majority? unless of course it is Democrats who won and the Repukes are “saving America”
the cognitive dissonance of the Common Teabag (Teabagus Regularus) is mind-blowing

oh this is the end for the enemy of the worker. my commie heart swells. I work in a place where I am not in a union (if there was one for my position and field I would be, but quite honestly the benefits and pay here are MORE than fair and I see no need to pressure my employer for more) but many people who work in other capacities are. I am hearing talk of support demonstrations nationwide if other teabag govs start acting like Walker…

also notice how James McQueef, or whatever his name is, and Breitbart and all those Bags have to edit tapes, use selected snippets etc. All you have to do to embarrass a conservative is to let them speak, play the whole tape, and step back….. and laugh.

Thus far Walker has (unfortunately) done a good job of framing the issue in his favor. As UI noted, the budget deficit for the next year (although Wisconsin requires two-year budgets) is a product of his corporate tax cuts. Yet the issue has been presented, at least at the national level, as a question of state employee benefits, salaries where the Republican governor strikes a pose as a fiscal, populist hawk. The best thing about this prank call is it throws him off message.

As far as criticizing senate Democrats for fleeing the states goes, fundamentally there is no difference between what they are doing and the time-honored tradition of filibustering at the federal level. Both achieve the same end of preventing a vote on legislation.

Jeff: That’s why we have to push back on the messaging. By misrepresenting the situation, we have an opening to make our case that virtually all Republican messaging is intrinisically dishonest, and that mainstream media has been sucked into playing their game by failing to fact-check that messaging.

If he’s winning, why are 61% of Americans against what he’s trying to do?

Geezer – we have made the case, with proof. We do it every day. The problem is, conservatives have outspent us on airtime about ten million to one (taking conservative ownership of media into account).

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